Drone wins face-off with elephant in Indian forest

This was the moment an elephant came face-to-face with a drone. The baffled behemoth tried to hold its ground against the intruder but eventually fled. The incident was captured at Periya Thadagam forest in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India by wildlife photographer and activist Bhaskaran TTS. The drone found the 30-year-old female elephant close to the herd she led. Seeing the flying machine as a threat she tried to shoo it away assuming an aggressing posture. She aggressively raised her trunk and trumpeted a few times but changed her mind later and walked away with her herd following her. Indian officials are using drones to stop elephant hers from straying close to human habitats. They say the herds mistake the buzz of the drones to an imminent attack by a swarm of honey bees and flee. Two weeks ago, officials used two drones to stop an elephant herd from getting close to a village and drive it deep into the forest in Coimbatore. Deepak Srivastava, Chief Conservator of Forests, Coimbatore Circle, said: “The buzzing sound of the rotors - similar to the buzzing of honey bees - made the elephants retract further into the reserve forest.”